


I Will Look for You at the Edge of Every Ocean

by mrs_shayla_alderson7



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Everyone's a little broken, F/M, Greyjoy-Stark Alliance, House Greyjoy, House Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Islands (Westeros), Romance, Winterfell, Yara and Jon are the brotp you never knew you needed, but they're gonna be okay, mentions of rape/non-con, post-season 5 AU, the reunion we've all been waiting for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_shayla_alderson7/pseuds/mrs_shayla_alderson7
Summary: Slowly, she turned, long black cloak moving through the damp snow. In another life, there might have been a golden kraken sewn carefully on it. There might have been no betrayed brothers and brutal bastards, just wolves and ships and a family never torn apart by pride and honor.In this life, they were nothing more than ghosts.---The Starks and the Greyjoys are forced to band together for the upcoming war, while Sansa and Theon find themselves caught up in monsters of their own making.





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Story is set three months after Theon and Sansa escape Winterfell. For the plot's sake, let's just assume that during those months, Jon was able to reclaim their home and crown himself as King in the North. Meanwhile, in the Iron Islands, Yara has managed to take the Seastone Chair, though the threat of Euron Greyjoy's upcoming attack still remains.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ironborn arrive at Winterfell.

The snow fell upon them delicately as the horses trudged through the thick grounds, the cold enveloping the sea-worn Ironborn in a fragile embrace. Even underneath the warm layers of leather and fur, the winter chill still found a way to seep through their bones. The small party had only rode for a few hours, but the men were already growing restless, in want of a crackling hearth and spiced ale. They were a loyal, silent lot; knew how to hold their tongues and obey orders without question. But their leader, a woman born and raised by the raging waters, already knew what they were too careful to say. A good queen knew what her subjects wanted; a skilled captain knew what her crew needed.

Thank the gods that she was both.

“Agar, I can feel your shivering from all the way here,” she japed, eyes locked on the road, horse a few meters in front of the group. “Before we left, your wife told me that you didn’t do well with the cold. She was even concerned that the fur would make you sneeze through the seven hells. Said it might be best if I left you behind.” She turned back to look at the man in question, his face already tinted red from both the snow and the embarrassment. She flashed him a good-hearted smirk and threw her head back, “Don’t worry, you bastard. You still made it here after all, didn’t you? Besides, if I listened to your hag, we wouldn’t have anyone to laugh at.”

A resounding cackle of deep chuckles and guffaws echoed throughout the Ironborn. Even Agar found it in himself to grin. “Lighten up, men. Nothing like a good laugh to warm your bones.” With one last knowing smile toward her crew, she turned her back on them and pushed through the snowy road once again.

Up ahead, the dark trees slowly faded into ancient brick walls and moss-riddled towers. It was still fairly early, but a stone’s throw away, flickering lanterns were already lining the uneven path. Banners of the grey direwolf stood proud in most every direction, waving in time with the harsh wind.

“Winterfell,” Yara breathed out, smoke rising from her chapped lips.

_“Home,”_ Theon echoed in his mind. The last he had been here was 3 months ago, back when he had been no more than a cowering creature, a disgusting, mindless worm of a man, housed with the dogs and fed with the pigs. _Reek, Reek, it rhymes with freak._ He shook the thought away as his breath began to quicken. He held onto the reigns tighter with his mangled fingers.

_My name is Theon Greyjoy, the last living son of Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands. I was born a kraken. I grew up with the wolves._

He swallowed hard, trying his best to calm his ragged breaths. He knew who he was. It may have taken him a while to remember, and on the worst nights, he often forgot, but deep down, he still knew.

Yara turned around and caught a glimpse of her baby brother, eyes shut tight and brows furrowed as he tried to fight back the memories, the monsters, the ghosts; everything that ever has and ever will haunt him. Her heart ached ever so slightly, the most she could let it without giving life to her own weakness. The young man with the proud smile and bright eyes was no longer the same. His smile never dared show itself anymore, while his eyes, once blue as the summer sea, remained trapped in a tired, dark storm. Even with his own bed, he spent the nights awaiting sleep that would never come while curled up on the wooden floors, far too used to the cold, hard ground to seek solace anywhere else. The haughty words of his youth could no longer be heard. Most of the time, the only things that escaped his mouth were mumbled apologies and distressed ramblings whispered under his breath as he desperately tried to forget all that was.

_He may have changed, but at least he’s still here,_ she offered to herself. _Broken is better than gone._

She ran her fingers softly over the back of his hand, forcing him to open his eyes and look up at her. “The north doesn’t seem to agree with you. Are you sure you want to go on?”

He was still trapped under a steady unease, but he managed to nod his head once and release the few fingers he had from her grip. “Aye, I’m fine.” He let his eyes linger on the castle once more, avoiding her concerned gaze. He didn’t deserve her pity. He deserved no mercy but death alone, but it seemed as though the Drowned god was not finished with him yet. It was a familiar ache that he would carry for the rest of his miserable days. Such was the price to pay of a turncloak, a traitor. “We’re not far off the gates. The men need their rest. Best not to waste any more time.”

With a flick of the reigns, he rode off, leaving her to watch his retreating figure grow smaller in the distance.

* * *

 He reached the towering walls first. Both peasants and armed men eyed him warily under their scrutinizing gaze. He may have been here to offer what little he had to the cause of the King in the North, but the people would always look past the formalities and see the traitorous ward, the burner of children, the mindless slave of the Bolton bastard. _The north remembers._ It was a truth he found no difficulty accepting. Even he, himself, would never find it in his heart to forget.

He slowly dismounted his horse, his body still somewhat pained with every little movement. Once his feet touched solid ground, he wrapped the reigns around his hand and led the animal to the stables. It was a dimly-lit space, smelling of hay and horse shit, and he knew it well. The _bastard_ sent him to work here whenever he grew tired of his Reek.

Theon let the horse have a quick drink, fed it some hay, then led it inside an empty stall. “Get comfortable,” he said quietly, brushing back its black mane with one of his glove-clad hands. “It looks like we’ll be staying here for a while. There’s no cause to leave Winterfell just yet.”

The sky was quiet, almost eerily so, but it gave Theon a small semblance of peace. Here, it was just the horse, the hay, and his thoughts. But suddenly, a voice cut through the silence, abrupt like a punch in the gut, catching the man off-guard. “I’m glad that is so, Lord Greyjoy.”

The Ironborn turned around and saw Bran, sitting atop a large mount through one of his special saddles. He was almost a man grown now, long-limbed and towering over the rest of them on his steed. If things had been different, he would have been a squire by then, well on his way to becoming a knight. Such were the dreams of the boy that Theon knew, the boy who climbed so high that the sky pushed him back down. The young Stark greeted the lord with a veiled smile, a look Theon couldn’t quite comprehend. “It’s a long time before we’re to become whole, but the family is piecing itself back together. Even more so that you’re here.”

Theon looked down in shame, a handful of conflicting emotions attacking him all at once. “I-I’m not a Stark. I’m not part of your family,” he murmured to the ground. “I never deserved to be.”

Bran’s blue eyes, once so full of youth, peered at him curiously from behind darkened strands of hair that were pressed to his forehead. “That’s not what you say when you stay up through the restless nights, crying out for Robb and Rickon. When you scream and thrash in time with the harsh waves of Pyke, you call them your brothers. And to this day, it haunts you that you never saved them.” The young man’s piercing gaze could have left holes in Theon’s soul. He couldn’t imagine how a boy who he hasn’t seen in years, a boy he sent running from his own home, could know about the things he would never dare speak of aloud.

“Winter has come, Theon Greyjoy. And you survived with the rest of us. Underneath the Kraken you wear, a wolf howls underneath, whether you think you deserve it or not.” Before the astounded Greyjoy could ask of how he knew such things, before he could apologize to the young man whose life he destroyed so long ago, the youngest living Stark turned his horse around and rode out to the courtyard, leaving dust and a torn Ironborn in his wake.

* * *

 She sat by the fire, the light of the dying embers dancing across her Tully hair. Her gaze was somber, locked on an unfinished project by her bedside, while in her hand, a letter remained clasped, bound by a broken Greyjoy seal.

_Home is not what I thought it once was, my lady. Sometimes, I wonder if Pyke is where I was even meant to go in the first place. To this day, I still regret not taking you all the way to the wall. But here I am, and there you are, back in Winterfell. Somehow, we both made it back home. We’re free now, though it’s so easy to forget. Still, it’s nice to find yourself in a place where you truly belong. Winter has come, and we have paid the iron price._

_I shall hope to see you again when things are better, when we are better, and tell you myself the things that cannot be said through paper alone. There’s still far too much to mend, to apologize for. I owe you a great debt that could never be repaid, but should you ask me to, I would willingly give up everything in your service. You will always have an ally in the Iron Islands._

_Your friend,_

_Theon_

That very same parchment of paper was flown in by a raven a few days past her first month of returning home to Winterfell. It was the first she heard of him again after he left for the land of his birth. Ever since she returned, she had been trying to get word, any word, from the iron islands, but to no avail. When she finally accepted that perhaps Theon Grejoy would be no more than a distant memory of days both bitter and better, the dark bird landed by her window, and the Kraken seal covered in snow gave her hope again.

Since then, she has kept the note safely tucked away, hidden from the sight of everyone but her. She bore no ill-will for the Ironborn, not since he spirited her away. Though some days, she found herself wishing that he hadn’t left so soon. But still, it wasn’t something that the Northeners could easily understand. They still saw him as a threat, a traitor. And no amount of words she poured out to Jon or anyone else could ever change that.

_People don’t change,_ they told her.

_But he did,_ she answered in her mind. _He took my hand and led me home._

Still, she couldn’t risk having them discover her exchanging letters with the Greyjoy ward. Long gone were her days in the lion’s den, with her every move watched by spiders and cunning men. But even here, the lingering feeling remained, the heavy weight of a phantom gaze. So every letter she wrote back was kept to the confines of the chest beneath her bed, never to be sent, for she knew no raven from her command could ever leave the castle unseen.

Despite all this, she busied her fingers with ink and parchment once every week. It all seemed futile, wasting words and candlewax on letters that would never be read. But for the lady of Winterfell, it was a comfort she almost forgot was possible to be felt. People would think her mad if they knew, but for so long it has been a constant for her, a mantra written out by her fingers in the dying light. _Dear Theon…_ Even the mere thought of him kept her company, and it was something worth holding onto, until he returned and she could finally find peace at the presence of something, _someone_ , that didn’t have to be kept hidden.

She let her eyes glance out the windows, and the sight of the Ironborn horses on northern ground sent an unfamiliar feeling down her bones. It was almost like excitement, but it went much deeper, laced with longing and jubilance. Had she been the silly girl she was at the age of twelve, she would have already clamoured down the stairs and planted herself at Winterfell’s gate a few hours earlier, but now she was a woman grown, the lady of the castle, and she would be the last to welcome them into her territory.

Carefully, she tucked Theon’s old letter back in its hiding place, and crossed the floor towards her bed. It was a large thing, covered in wolf pelts and wool, and much too big for someone sleeping alone, but when she tossed and turned in the worse nights, it was all that kept her from slamming into the floorboards. She took the unfinished project from her bedside and pulled it into her lap, her fingers making quick work of the needle and thread. She had been working on it for quite a while, ever since Jon gave word that the sea stone queen and her brother would be paying a visit to the north. She could have finished it weeks ago, but she deliberately took her time in drawing it out, finding the right colors and adding intricate patterns. Her septa favoured her for a reason, and she was determined to give justice to the old woman’s words.

After half an hour or so, a soft, rhythmic knocking sounded from her closed door. “Lady Sansa, we’re almost out of ale.” Her handmaid’s voice rang out from the other side. “Shall I ask the scullery maids to fetch a few barrels from Wintertown?”

“No need.” The eldest Stark girl called back. She hurriedly dropped the piece of fabric from her fingers and buried it deep under the covers, cautious that no one would see. _To be home and still in hiding._ With a sigh, she got up from her perch on the bed and opened the door. “I had the men store about a dozen more in the back. It should last us the whole week.” 

A sudden pang of hunger settled in Sansa’s stomach, familiar yet unwelcome. The sensation jostled her from her thoughts for the briefest of moments. It would simply not do. She gestured to the younger girl with a wave of her hand. “Come, I’m heading to the kitchen myself. I’m in the mood for lemon cakes.”

 “Yes, m’lady. Of course.”

With a satisfied nod of her head, Sansa pulled the door shut behind her and strode down the hallway with her handmaid. She had skipped breakfast that morning, the anticipation for the arrival of the Greyjoys leaving her stomach at unrest. But she could already feel the growing pain of hunger climbing up her belly. It was a good thing that ever since she returned, Jon asked the cooks to make a fresh batch of her favorite dessert every day. The lemons weren’t as sweet as the ones from Highgarden, nor was the cake’s first bite as moist and decadent as those from King’s Landing, but it tasted of warmth and childhood and the north. She couldn’t ask for anything more.

The simple white handkerchief, hand-sewn with an image of a grey kraken joined by a black direwolf with golden eyes, lay forgotten on her mattress with the mess of needles and thread.


	2. Seasalt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Yara talk business. Sansa and Theon reunite.

Jon had always been curious about the Iron Islands. He’d lived with criminals and traitors under the brotherhood of the black, wandered about the outskirts of the wall with the untamed Wildlings, and even come face to face with the undead White Walkers once or twice. But he had never met a lot quite like the Ironborn. Ever since father brought home the young boy with tousled hair and skin that smelled like sea salt, he often thought about the home that the Greyjoy ward was forced to leave behind. Though it was true that the eight-year-old’s proud and detailed stories had always left little to the imagination, it was hard to fathom an island in the middle of the sea, inhabited by burly, axe-wielding, ship-sailing pirates who pillaged and plundered however far the water would take them. It all sounded like something Old Nan would make up.

But now, it didn’t sound so impossible after all. The crew of Ironborn sitting around Winterfell’s great hall wasn’t the biggest the castle had seen, but they somehow managed to fill the whole place with their overwhelming presence. The woman in breeches and boots managed to stand out the most in particular. She laughed the loudest, drank the most ale, and all the men gathered around her looked at her with a certain reverence, usually reserved for kings and knights. There were queens who played with wildfire, queens who rode dragons, and now before him was a queen who carried herself like a king. Jon would have shaken his head at the absurdity of it all had he not been slightly in awe.

She turned her head at just the right moment and caught his eye. Jon meant to look away, but she held her gaze and sent him an amused grin. The queen of the Iron Islands got up from her seat and said one last thing to her men, sending them in humoured hysterics, smiling widely herself, before taking her mug of spiced wine with her and crossing the hall towards the head table where the king in the north sat alone. Her leather coat dragged across the floor in its length as she walked, much like the way most ladies’ skirts would. Yara, however, had no interests in skirts and corsets and lace. That is, unless she was undressing a fellow lady of such things.

“Jon Snow,” she said as way of greeting as she marched up beside him. She set down her mug on the table with little to no grace, the liquid sloshing around and eventually staining the wood in little dark droplets. Jon paid it no mind, however, and stood up from his own seat and offered her his welcome.

“Yara Greyjoy. I was hoping to greet you sooner, but I figured you and your men had greater need for rest and refreshments before we spoke.”

She nodded her head once. “Aye. Ironborn aren’t meant for snow, but the Northerners’ welcome was a warm refuge from the cold. You run quite a fine castle here, my lord.”

Jon wanted no credit of Winterfell’s current state of progress. He was a fixture, more than anything, seated on his half-sister’s throne as a symbol of a united north, held together by the great line of the late Ned Stark. He dealt with the battles, the defences, the strategies, all of which were of utmost importance now that the Starks were seemingly at constant war with threats from within the realm and beyond, at least according to Sansa. But still, he knew that there was no need for a king in the North, especially when a queen already lived within Winterfell’s halls. His lady sister may tend to linger within the castle, but it was only through her sheer will and relentless wit that their people were kept warm and fed throughout the winter. War was upon them, but Sansa saw to it that trades remained in motion, harvests kept stored, and commoners’ disputes attended to. She ran their childhood home with the best of their Lord father and Lady Catelyn within her.

He sent the queen of the Iron Islands a smile, taciturn yet charmed all the same. “I’m glad it is all to your liking. Though I must admit, I haven’t an eye for such fineries. You would have to commend Lady Sansa for all of it. Winterfell wouldn’t be as it is without the work of my sister.”

Yara had heard a great deal about this Sansa girl. There were six Starks that her brother grew up with in his youth, including the current King of the North who stood proudly before her. But aside from a fallen friend named Robb, the eldest daughter of Winterfell was the one Theon talked about the most. He never told the whole story of how the lady came to be so dear to him, but from what Yara had gathered from Theon’s broken, half-mumbled stories, the former queen-to-be of the Seven Kingdoms was more of a wolf than any living being in Winterfell, and her brother, the last heir of the Iron Islands, owed his life to her. Lady Sansa greatly intrigued the Queen of Pyke. Hopefully they would meet soon enough, and Yara would finally be able to put a face to an often-heard name.

“I’ll be sure to commend the lady when we finally meet.” She assured with a tight grin before Jon tipped his head in understanding and gestured towards the table. The queen quickly swiped back her mug of wine as she settled into her new seat at the middle of the great hall.

They both sipped from their glasses quietly as they watched the merrymaking unfold before them. Yara knew that her people were stoic and ruthless. But give them a sea to cross and a cup of wine for their trouble, and they will find peace. “How many ships do you need, exactly?” She suddenly asked, blunt tone cutting through the silence and catching Jon off-guard.

“Beg your pardon, my lady?” Jon contested, having choked on his drink when Yara sprung the question out-of-the-blue.

The queen of Pyke rolled her dark blue eyes. “Don’t pretend like this is anything but a matter of business, Lord Snow. As pleasing it is to hear that the two great houses of Stark and Greyjoy came together on this frozen wasteland for the mere sake of friendship, whoever believes that to be the case is highly deluded. We wouldn’t be here today wasting barrels of wine and weeks’ worth of food if you didn’t need my ships and I didn’t need your men. So let’s cut to the chase and get down to what we came here for.”

Jon watched in amusement as she poured herself another cup of spiced wine, already looking bothersome and annoyed as if she was surrounded by insufferable, lesser men. And maybe in her mind, she was, but the sun hasn’t even gone down yet and the King in the North has once again watched another one of life’s mysteries unfold before his eyes. A lady has never dropped her pleasantries so quickly as Yara Greyjoy; she could shrug off all sense of manners and decorum as if she were merely shedding a coat.

“You’re rather forward, Lady Greyjoy,” he mused. She raised a challenging eyebrow at him in return, daring him to upset her just the slightest bit. Jon raised his arms up in mock surrender, a chuckle at the edge of his lips. “No harm meant. I respect such a trait, if I were to speak truly.”

“Well, your honesty is getting us nowhere, Lord Snow.” She half-mumbled with a roll of her eyes, before taking a drink once more. “I get that honor and courtesy mean the world to you northerners, but I personally regard your honor as an insult if it goes so far as to waste much-needed time. You understand that, don’t you?”

Jon merely stared at her, almost ridiculed, but not to the point of offense. _So this is how they do things in the Iron Islands_ , he pondered to himself. _No courtesy, no chivalry. What a miserable lot._

“Forgive me for my honor then,” Jon said lowly. His lord father would probably roll in his grave if he ever had to meet this outlandish queen. “The last thing I wanted was to have your time wasted.”

Yara waved off his words with a flick of her hand. “It doesn’t matter now. I apologize, too, if I insulted you somehow. Though you better get used to it if our lands are to be allies. We Ironborn don’t sugar-coat our words for anyone. We always say what needs to be said, and do what needs to be done. That’s how we win rebellions and earn our thrones.”

“Your people didn’t win your last rebellion.”

She gave him a taunting look, taken aback at his sudden brashness but not entirely disappointed. “Aye, but with a title, a fleet, and a crown, it doesn’t seem like I lost much, does it?”

 _You lost your brother,_ Jon wanted to say. _You lost your honor._ But he kept all words to himself in fear of losing an alliance that his fire-haired sister desperately fought to broker. He couldn’t do that to her. Besides, Queen Yara already seemed like she lost everything that mattered. Jon heard about her murdered father, her insane mother. He wanted no part in rubbing salt on hidden wounds.

“How many ships can you offer me, exactly?” Jon asked, steering their conversation away from volatile ground. Yara smirked slightly, grateful to finally get some work done on their agreements. The sooner they made their terms clear, the sooner they could both get what they wanted.

She picked on the grapes laid out on the plates in front of them. “It depends, really. What do you need them for?” The Greyjoy queen tossed one of the ripened fruits in the air and caught it with blunted force, the green grape squashed in her hands as its sweet juice ran down her fingers. She threw the ruined fruit in the fire and watched it burn. “Though I feel as if I already know. I doubt you would’ve spent weeks convincing me of the presence of monsters beyond the Wall in our letters had you no intention of playing a move against them. A move involving my fleet, perhaps?”

“A much-needed move,” Jon urged. “The threats may seem distant at this moment, but they are very much real.”

Yara set her eyes on him, giving nothing away but her relentless gaze. She spoke with a measured tone that her mother once insisted every lady should master, much to her youthful chagrin. This was back when Lady Alannys carefully planned the future of her only daughter, securing her with everything she needed for an eventful life in court with a lord’s son as a husband, perhaps. Often the Queen of Pyke wondered if she was better off as the proper lady her mother endeavoured to raise.

“I never said they weren’t real, Lord Snow. You were the one who kept sending letter after letter about these so-called White Walkers, piling everything you have to say about them on to me as if I was going to write you off as a raving lunatic unless you convinced me thoroughly of their presence.” She sent a knowing look his way that took the King by surprise. The Queen didn’t look as incensed about it as he thought she’d be. In fact, he would dare say she appeared quite amused.

“You know, I wish I’d met you a lot sooner, my lady.” Jon said, shaking his head with an unreadable look on his face, but Yara sensed that he was pleased, nonetheless.

She tipped her glass ever-so-slightly in his direction. “I know a mad king when I see one. You’re not one of them. Now stop trying to convince me of things I already believe and tell me what you’d have me do about your monsters.”

* * *

 “Tell the Rydell boys to check on our wheat storage first thing in the morning and have them report back to me. The fruits from the South are barely making their way through the snow. The last thing we need is a shortage of grain…” Sansa stopped abruptly in the middle of her discourse when an unlikely figure ventured into the kitchen doorway.

His hair was shorter now, clean and cropped with skilled fingers she never bothered to use for his sake. The poor excuse for clothes he used to wear was now replaced with boiled leathers and a brave sigil that befitted his name. But perhaps the greatest thing that grabbed Sansa’s attention was his eyes. They were clearer now, less sad, though still a long way from peaceful. His blue gaze reminded her so much of the calm waters he used to miss in his youth that she wanted to cry.

She had to blink a few times, unsure if her eyes were deceiving her. Perhaps the gods really did enjoy taking her by surprise. It was one thing to know that Theon Greyjoy was back in Winterfell. It was another thing altogether to have him stand just a few feet away from her.

He hadn’t known that he would have to face her so soon, the face that haunted his dreams and nightmares alike. Theon didn’t mean to seek her out, really. He was on his way back from the stables when he got lost in his own head again. And deep inside his mind, a voice was calling. It belonged to the girl he pulled through the snow and back to her home. Only this time, it wasn’t broken and raw and hopeless like it used to be. Her words held no more tremors and desperation, instead strengthened by a resolve that he always knew she had in her.

So he followed the sound, sure that he was going after another ghost fabricated by his insanity.

Except there were no ghosts in Winterfell anymore. Not when she was there, in the flesh, flushed in the evening light. She had been giving instructions to the scullery maids, but all her words seemed to escape her the second his feet carried him through the door and back to her life. The world seemed to freeze for a moment then, not from the Northern cold but from another power entirely, when their eyes met from across the room.

“Lady Stark,” he breathed. In the back of his mind, he desired more than anything to say her name. _Sansa._ But it felt like an honor that he wasn’t worthy of just yet. So he settled on a brief bow of his head, instead, bending down in a way that a King’s sister deserved.

“Theo-” Sansa faltered in her words, forgetting herself for a moment. He was still the stranger, the foreigner, in the eyes of all the servants watching them with keen eyes. Never mind that he grew up there within that castle’s very walls. To them, the child that Ned Stark brought home from the Iron Islands died the second he turned against his host family. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t say his name in such a way, not in front of everyone. She parted her lips once more. “Lord Greyjoy.”

Theon looked around them and grew still. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but her alone, not in front of the servant women gathered in the room, with their shifting hands and fleeting thoughts, quick to obey but not to understand. No one could ever understand. The gravity of what the pair went through could only be discussed behind closed doors, a safe place for tears and tedious thoughts. His fingers fidgeted at his sides all the while.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” He averted his eyes to the floor and turned towards the doorway. “Please go on. I’ll just see myself out.”

Before Sansa could get another word out, before she could ask him to _please stay_ , he was already out the door and beyond arm’s reach. She leaned back against the counter and let out a heavy sigh.

Sometimes she wondered if he was more water than man. In his youth, he could take the form of angry waves, careening down everything in his path. In the volatile gaze of the mad dogs at the Dreadfort, he learned to grow still and silent, calm as the ocean at early dawn. And now, after everything has been said and done, he turned to water between her fingers, slipping through her grasp as if he was never there at all.


End file.
